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The Pen is a real person, and the founder of The People's Email Network, a resource founded in 2004 with the mission of making sending policy advocacy messages as facile and easy as possible. With this goal in mind we pioneered one click action pages in the political realm, now imitated by virtually all other action sites on the internet.

The premise behind the resource has always been twofold. If people are speaking out to their members of Congress in sufficient numbers one of two things MUST happen. 1) Either our representatives will heed the voices of their constituents and we will have the policy change we want, or 2) People will personally experience being ignored by their members of Congress, and then we have a base of people motivated to seek their replacement.

Last year we also added to its resource options fax sending capability, so that messages can be sent by fax to recipients who might not be reachable by web input form or regular email.

Besides our own action alerts and pages, many other activist groups have been set up with their own action page creators, including building this capability into the writer article submission interface for OpEdNews.com itself, to empower them in their own policy missions. And all of these services are provided for absolutely no charge to anyone, supported only by whatever kind donations individuals choose to make from time to time.

We have also been involved in video and audio production of activist works of theater, including a stage production in San Francisco of a play on the impeachment of "George Bush and Richard Cheney", released on DVD in 2008, and a radio play for peace entitled, "It's Up To Us Alone", which debuted on two 100,000 watt stations (KPFK, Los Angeles and KKFI, Kansas City) last October, and is also in preparation for release as a short animated film.

The latest project is full length feature film, "The Last War Crime", about indicting Cheney for torture . . . and isn't that something billions of people want to see? We ask the question, "What if there was only one chance for justice?" Featuring 100 cast members with speaking parts, the film is remarkable for its extensive use of cutting edge green compositing to put the characters in actual historical environments and photo-realistic recreations of others.

Though not in official release quite yet, the "The Last War Crime" has experienced major censorship hurdles, including the banning of its preview waterboard scene from YouTube (reversed after massive popular outcry), and the refusal of MTV (Viacom Inc.) to accept a paid ad for the movie, and a parallel rejection by WMAL, the premier political news/talk radio station in Washington, DC, now the subject of a major ongoing federal lawsuit for "political speech discrimination".

Friday, April 11, 2014(3 comments)The Dangerous Folly Of Campaign Finance Reform Legislation Now
We've gotten multiple mail solicitations in the last couple days for some petition calling for "comprehensive" campaign finance reform OR constitutional amendment to "reverse" McCutcheon, with the emphasis on the former. The problem is that the Supreme Court has made itself perfectly clear. Any attempt to undo what they are doing, and they will strike DOWN your comprehensive campaign finance reform just as comprehensively.

Sunday, March 30, 2014(39 comments)Who Will Save The Democrats From Themselves?
Last week Nate Silver gave his assessment that the Democrats had a 60% chance of losing the Senate in the next election. Considering the fact that Democratic leaders were bragging last time about how Silver always got it right, this is an ominous sign. The one and only hope the Democrats have is to put everything behind a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United corporate personhood decision.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014Easy Write A Letter To The Editor Protesting Trans Pacific Partnership
They are trying in the secret Trans Pacific Partnership to give corporations veto power over the national laws of any country on pollution, labor, privacy and everything else? But with this new easy write a letter to your newspaper editor we can create the publicity to stop them.

Monday, October 14, 2013Stop The Shutdown Merry-Go-Round
When the latest shutdown started, Michelle Bachmann was quoted as saying the Republicans had never been merrier. We, the people of the United States, are not merry. The shutdown merry-go-round must stop.

Saturday, October 5, 2013(1 comments)Chump Change: Our New Corporate Health Care System
While the health care bill's strongest defenders are bragging that they can save a hundred dollars or whatever, America continues to pay . . . continues to pay . . . CONTINUES to pay more than twice as much as any developed first world country in the world for their health care. These are chump corporate discounts, folks, for anyone with the integrity to admit it.

Monday, September 9, 2013(3 comments)The Dead Bodies They Won't Show Us Pictures Of
In a last gasp attempt to try to inflame the American people and its Congress into our own irrational act of international murder in Syria, the administration has flooded our media with pictures of dead bodies. Do they really think all they have to do is show us some bodies lined up in burial shrouds and like Pavlov's mad dogs we will all start foaming at the mouth for war?

Monday, September 2, 2013(1 comments)Action Page: Absolutely NO Syria Attack Without International Consensus
In the new authorization for military force measure proposed by the White House much lip service is given to previous UN resolutions, international norms, and the like. So why is it that not a SINGLE other country in the world is interested in joining us in this rash assault?

Saturday, August 31, 2013(2 comments)The Red Line For Impeachment In Syria
Kerry contends that Assad was warned that use of chemical weapons was a red line not to be crossed. but he did so anyway. We warn President Obama that rogue executive action to launch an attack is an equally clear red line, and he dare not cross it, and we WILL call for accountability and shame on us if we don't.

Monday, January 21, 2013(4 comments)Unblocking The Pipe (Stop The Filibuster, Part 5)
The most important thing to recognize is that the only thing that has ever forced any movement on filibuster reform has been the threat to change it unilaterally. There have been many attempts to reform the filibuster, but only when the Senate was completely fed up and ready to invoke the so-called "constitutional option" has anything ever actually happened.

Sunday, January 20, 2013Robert's Rules Of Disorder (Stop The Filibuster, Part 4)
Some may think that because Robert's so-called Rules of Order include a procedure that resembles an attempted cloture vote (to cut off a filibuster) that this was some time honored tradition from the same era as our Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013Pirates Of The Constitution (Stop The Filibuster, Part 3)
It was not until at least 50 years after the Constitutional Convention that some perverse senators had the evil idea of exploiting an inadvertent defect in the rules to hijack the process . . . pirates of the Constitution. And that is exactly how they were viewed at the time.

Thursday, November 29, 2012(3 comments)We Need A Million People To Stop The Filibuster
We need a million people to submit the action page to Stop The Filibuster. But Now that the Democrats are talking like they will actually move to reform filibuster abuse, the Republicans are threatening to completely shut down the Senate in vengeful retaliation. Isn't that the status quo? Isn't that why the filibuster must be abolished in the first place? Isn't that why we must all speak out now?

Wednesday, November 7, 2012Where Do We Go Forward To From Here, Post Election??
Unless we get cracking right now, and advocate for policy change in voices that WILL NOT be ignored, in another two years we will again be faced with a choice between candidates hard to defend and even greater evils. This is our three part plan on how to proceed going forward.

Saturday, January 21, 2012(1 comments)MTV (Viacom Inc.) REFUSES Ad For The Last War Crime Movie
In an astonishing act of corporate arrogance, MTV (Viacom Inc.) refuses to accept an ad for the new feature length film, "The Last War Crime", and admits in the same breath that it is an act of political censorship of the film itself, not just of one particular ad.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011(3 comments)YouTube Censors the Waterboarding Scene from The Last War Crime movie
Though still not even in official release, YouTube is already trying
to suppress "The Last War Crime," a new full-length feature film
about indicting Dick Cheney for torture. And by the way, isn't that
something billions of people want to see? ﻿But YouTube does not want their
visitors to see the preview clip of the waterboarding scene from the movie, and a protest is mobilizing against their censorship.

Saturday, November 6, 2010(4 comments)Dead Political Party Walking
The Democratic party as a viable political power force is finished for at least the next election cycle. Stick a fork in it, it's done. We see no scenario of possible recovery from this. It's over. The only reason they did not lose back the Senate in round one is because only a third of the seats were in play. The rest they will lose the next time for sure.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010(1 comments)The Synchronized Surrender Squad, A.K.A. The Democratic Progressive Caucus
Those of us who have so-called progressives supposedly representing us in Congress have cause to complain the loudest. More than sixty of them declared in no uncertain terms last fall that NO bill would pass without a strong "public option". Instead, they did the opposite, working en masse to drag anybody who would hold out back into their slime pit of cowardice.

Sunday, April 11, 2010(6 comments)Part 8 of Supreme Court Analysis: First Amendment Absolutism, But Only For Corporations
This is the eighth of our much anticipated installments tearing up into little itsy bitsy pieces the rogue Supreme Court ruling to declare our country the kingdom of the corporations. We're not proud, we're not tired. But there are still yet more fundamental and unforgivable errors in this opinion we have not yet addressed.

Friday, April 2, 2010The Most AWESOME Political Force In The Country . . . And It's YOU!!
What most people do not realize is that as of this moment the MOST
visited web site on the planet is Facebook, bigger even than Google.
That is where the people are, that is where the people are going
(independent of anything we do), and THAT is why we MUST mobilize
there politically.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010(5 comments)The Great American Stupid Test
Once in a while, actually quite frequently lately, a politician will say something so idiotic on its face that it becomes a test of the national credulity. For example, when they tell us they will really, really try to pass a public option later.

Thursday, March 18, 2010(3 comments)Hope Is Dead, Long Live Independent Activism
We are calling for all citizens of the United to declare that under no circumstance will they vote for any candidate associated with either the Democratic or Republican parties, and that we instead dedicate our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor, to electing worthy independents who can demonstrate a lifetime of public policy advocacy on behalf of the people.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010(33 comments)"The Medicare Option": Let People Under 65 Buy Into Medicare
There IS an option that could redeem even the Senate health insurance bill in consideration, presuming we get an iron clad commitment up front that it will be done. And that is to provide that people younger than 65 should be permitted the OPTION of buying into the Medicare.

Sunday, March 7, 2010(17 comments)The Democratic Party's Plan To THROW The Next Couple Elections
To understand the current political dynamic, first you must understand that the Democrats are PLANNING on losing the next couple election cycles. UNTIL you understand that, the events to unfold in the next couple years (unless you act to derail them) will make no sense to you.

Sunday, February 28, 2010(1 comments)The Bogus Stare Decisis Standoff, The Sixth In The Supreme Court 5 Condemnation Series
In this, the sixth in the series of our analyses condemning the Supreme Court corporate personhood decision, we demonstrate how Kennedy cites cases for propositions they never decided, and on that bogus pretext asserts he can overturn real decisions as if they all have equal standing and weight, a supreme act of case law fraud.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010Ask Your Medical Corporation CEO If Being An Indentured Debt Slave Is Right For You
All the "hope" in the world is not going to result in the slightest bit of real progressive policy change. NO, for that YOU must ACTIVELY speak out and KEEP doing it. Put down your "Yes, We Can" coffee mug and step away from the slick corporate con job. Submit this action page now, which includes a special custom function to pipe your personal comments directly to the new White House questions form.

Sunday, February 21, 2010(1 comments)The Supreme Court 5 Insist They Were Right All Along ... Far, Far, Extreme, Off The Deep End Right
This is the 5th installment of our legal analysis of the various inexcusable errors in the EDICT by five Supreme Court wolves to rip apart limits on corporate influence on the people's elections. So if you are getting the impression that some law school could build an entire semester's lecture course around EVERYTHING that is wrong with this case, as a text book example of bad legal work, it is because they could.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010The Supreme Court 5, Baking Fresh Fact Pretzels Every Day On Corporate Personhood
This is the fourth in our series of critical analyses of the many twisted aspects of the decision by five judicial radicals on the Supreme Court to throw our democracy over the side of the ship of corporate state. We continue our examination of the factual funny business that now purports to pass as a Supreme Court decision, again with specific citations to pages of the opinion itself.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010Submit Your "I'M THE PEOPLE" YouTube Video And Win A Free Democracy!
We're having a contest to see to see who can submit the most creative YouTube video on the theme of "I'M THE PEOPLE", because apparently five members of the Supreme Court can't tell the difference between natural citizens and disembodied, fictitious business entities.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010(3 comments)Five Supreme Court Judges Do Da Corporate Takeover Hustle, And They Must Be Stopped
This the second in a series of action alerts about the fundamental willful and pernicious errors underlying the decision by 5 agenda driven right wing judges on the Supreme Court to gut all restraints on corporate meddling in our elections. Each of these successive alerts will analyze additional derelict aspects of this shameful and truly dangerous decision, to further demonstrate why we the people must reverse it.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010(1 comments)Did You Get Our Message, Tuesday?!
What is it with the Democrats really? Is this some kind of senseless, unilateral mass suicide thing? In the space of a mere year they have gone from one of the most compelling mandates for real progressive change in American history, to trying to stuff a "much more of the same" bill down their constituents' throats, a bill so universally despised that if Ted Kennedy were still alive even HE would be crying foul.

Monday, December 21, 2009The Shinola On Health Care Stops Here, But ONLY If YOU Speak Out Now
Remember that we were the people who told you the TRUTH about what was really going on, when we wrote over three months ago that Obama had no intention of letting a public option of any kind survive. The most important thing now is that WE must speak out and declare the TRUTH that "The Health Care Bill Is A Total Fraud On The American People"

Wednesday, December 16, 2009Fax Action Page: I Want To Sign Up For Medicare Too!!
Think about it, folks. They would not be on the TV trying to sell us
so hard on fake reform measures if they did not NEED our
acquiescence. When enough people declare that we will no longer
settle for coal in our Christmas stockings, then and only them will
we get the real deal.

Thursday, November 12, 2009Delightful New "Medicare For All" Video And Fax Action Page, "I'm A Democrat, And I'm A Republican"
A couple weeks ago the Democratic Senate Committee put out a video called "I'm A Democrat, And I'm A Republican", begging us for more campaign contributions based on the premise that even 60 votes in their caucus is not enough to pass a decent bill. So we decided to produce a series of our own issue advocacy satire videos, to propagate the truth that NEITHER the Democrats NOR the Republicans want real health care reform.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009(6 comments)Obama's New, Improved Leech Therapy
In last Wednesday's speech, President Obama sounded reasonable and compassionate and articulate. But look at what he actually did, and the effect it will actually will have: Obama has clearly aligned himself with the preservation of insurance profits, and in so doing he has destroyed any possibility of a functional health care system.

Sunday, September 13, 2009Obama's New "Improved" Leech Therapy
The sheer sappiness, even from progressives, of most of the commentary we've heard in the aftermath of President Obama's address to Congress this week on health care is truly breathtaking. Now we are going to tell you what really happened last Wednesday night.

Sunday, May 10, 2009(6 comments)Except That We WON'T Shut Up About Single Payer Health Care, No Matter What Senator 'More Police' Baucus Says
Friends, there are rare moments of clarity when we the people can see through the veil of illusion designed to condition us into docile inaction.
There was such a moment this week, when Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, laughingly joked "we need more police", when one qualified doctor and lawyer after another stood up to protest their exclusion from the debate on health care.

Monday, January 5, 2009(18 comments)Bush Special Prosecutor is Top Question for Obama
For the second time now, President-Elect Obama has asked the American people, to come to his web site at Change.gov to ask and vote for questions, to help set the priorities for his administration, and the current the top-ranked question seeks a non-partisan Special Prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration.

Monday, November 10, 2008(12 comments)Impeach Bush Before He Pardons Himself
According to Seymour Hersh there is a conga line of insiders waiting
until January 20th to spill the beans on the gross criminality of the
Bush/Cheney administration. Waiting . . . because if they did it now
the two of them would be tarred and feathered on the way out the
door. And in case you had not figured it out yet, Bush is planning on pardoning himself, unless he is stopped first by impeachment.

Monday, April 7, 2008Download the New Impeachment Passion Play in Production in San Francisco
Shirley Golub, who is seriously challenging Nancy Pelosi for the Democratic party primary nomination on June 3, is sponsoring the production of a new impeachment passion play, "I" - The Impeachment Trial of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, cowritten by premier impeachment scholar Bruce Fein, dramatist Richard A. Lasser and this writer. This article includes a link to the full final script.

Monday, November 12, 2007(3 comments)The THIRD Option (Systematic Primary Challenges)
What is it going to take for the majority of the American People to get the attention of Congress? In this piece we will propose the simple, necessary, and what should have been self-evident, answer to this question . . . there is one and only one message that members of Congress will ever actually heed, that their own seats are in jeopardy.

Saturday, October 20, 2007(3 comments)So They're Fond of Condemnations Are They? Let's Condemn the Entire Republican Leadership
Once in a rare while a member of Congress will speak the plain truth without equivocation. This week Pete Stark stood up to accuse the president of the United States of having no conscience about the deaths of the thousands of valiant troops he sent on a criminal war mission, while at the same time stealing the medicines out of the mouths of babes.

Saturday, September 29, 2007(5 comments)Now Read The Truth: Lieberman-Kyl DEFANGED Because of YOU
It has taken a couple days for the actual disposition of the Lieberman-Kyl amendment to leak out, but in FACT, the two most offensive paragraphs (3 and 4), which we were objecting to so strenuously as amounting to a declaration of war on Iran, were REMOVED IN THEIR ENTIRELY prior to the vote. Which means we WON.